“There is nothing wrong with competition,” said
Roelf Meyer to the Guyanese politicians. “But if the only space you have is a competitive
space, you are in trouble.” Meyer was the
De Klerk government’s chief
negotiator during South Africa’s transition to
democracy in the early 90’s. “You need
to carve out parallel spaces where you can collaborate instead of compete,” he
advised.

As I listened to him I
imagined these parallel spaces as transformative green spaces where peoplechange the way they see each other, and
competition spaces as red-hot spaces, capable of destroying creativity and new
life.

Guyana, where I worked as
a peace and development advisor for the United Nations from 2003 to 2006,
suffered from a toxic political culture which fed on people’s fears.
Descendants from African slaves and Indian indentured labourers found
themselves in different political camps. Humiliation and blaming each other’s past
and present political leaders for the current socioeconomic situation was the
favourite ping-pong style of interaction. The governing party, which was the
favourite party of East Indians, came to power in 1991. Most Indians were still
bitter about ‘the
period of discrimination and abuse’under an African-dominated administration which
allegedly rigged the elections for 28 years prior to 1991. Fed up with ethnic
politics, two MPs, one Indian and one African defected from the two major
parties and formed a new political party, the Alliance for Change, to lead
Guyana towards a non-racial, just and equitable society.

The situation was bleak.
People were leaving the country in droves. The economy was suffering and the
business community was also split along political lines. Guyana suffered from
red space symptoms.

Competition, in theory, is
meant to motivate us to achieve levels of unprecedented excellence in business,
sport and academia. In practice, however, it often brings out the worst in us,
especially when political, economic and societal tensions and stakes are high.

Red space interaction is
mostly heated and adversarial. People argue, debate, attack and defend. They
get distracted and focus on the wrong set of questions: Who is right? Who has
power over others? Who is the strongest? Why shouldn’t the
opposition be trusted? Who is to blame? Mistrust becomes a tool for survival;
justifying your position as the silver bullet. Hard negotiations are a sign of
strength; vulnerability and compassion are signs of weakness. Relationships are
important only insofar as they serve self-interest. Winners don’t share.
Losers don’t cry. The ruling party rules. The opposition
opposes. The spiral heads downward.

Politicians, and certain
types of economic actors and activists thrive in this adrenalin-filled
environment, which, predictably, does not create new meaning and life. In fact,
it just “reproduces patterns of the past”, as Otto Scharmer reminds us.

Guyana was stuck in such a
deep red space. The government was looking to the United Nations (UN) for
assistance.

We –the UN and its local partner, the Ethnic
Relations Commission (ERC)–carefully chose appropriate terminology and
strategies. We could not talk about mediation, dialogue or facilitation,
because memories of failed political dialogue attempts were still too fresh and
painful. The UN undertook to assist Guyanese to “explore ways to take Guyana forward”. Our
strategy was a green space strategy. It was an attempt to change the setting,
the mode of interaction and the questions and topics so that Guyanese could
generate new energy to heal the nation.

Green spaces are very
different from red spaces. The ground rules are completely different. The mode
of communication is dialogue – not
debate. Dialogue is not an event. It is a process. It is not
only about the physical act of talking. It is also about “minds
and relationships unfolding so that people can find real freedom through
collaboration”.[1] Dialogue is “respectful interaction through which human beings
listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what they learn”.[2]William
Isaacs
says that “dialogue … is a conversation with a centre, not sides. It
is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward
something that has never been created before”. The aim
of dialogue, as Louise Diamond and others explain, is not so much to talk,
but to listen; not so much to convince, but to explore; not to blame, but to
affirm; not to prove a point, but to build common understanding; not to have
power over others, but power with others; not to create winners and losers, but
winning solutions for all.

While details and
specifics matter, in dialogue the focus is more on understanding the system
than on nit-picking. Dialogue partners focus on arriving at a strategy in order
to reverse a dysfunctional system that distracts and keeps us from answering
the most important questions of our time:What does the future ask of us? What are the elements of a vision we see
for our country? What do we need to understand together? What do we most want
others to understand about what is important to us? What are the key driving factors
that reinforce the red space-type interactions and systemic problems? What can
we do together to break patterns of resistance to change? What do we
collectively need to do more of and less of? What do we need to start doing and
stop doing?

Green spaces make positive
shifts in relationships possible. People change because they discover a common
humanity, common values and intentions, which are the basis from which common
action can be undertaken to overcome the challenges, says Adam Kahane.

Effective green spaces are
safe spaces. This does not mean that green spaces are kumbaya-type ‘soft
spaces’where ‘soft
skills’are
needed and where the hard issues are avoided. It is a popular myth that
listening, affirming human dignity and respectful communication are soft
skills. It is much harder and much more uncomfortable to engage ‘the
other’face to face than to shout or shoot at an
adversary from a distance.

In green spaces, there is no limit to how deeply and widely issues are
explored. What is absent is not the quest for truth and honesty, but the desire
to defend one’s own point of view at all costs. As Otto Scharmer says, we come with “an open
mind, open heart and open will”. We suspend our strongly held beliefs to
generate understanding, solutions and actions that could not have been
developed by the individuals alone. Joseph Jaworski calls this “creating collective intelligence”. This
is hard work in uncomfortable safe spaces.

After 18 months of careful
preparation Guyanese political, business and civil society leaders attended a two-day
conflict transformation workshop, as equals. Mistrust and apprehension were, of
course, present at the start, but towards the end the need to attack and defend
disappeared as participants explored ways to lead Guyana towards a better
future. Positions, status and egos mattered less than discovering one another
as Guyanese who wanted to see the best for their country.

Inspired by the power of
genuine interaction, this gathering gave the ERC a mandate to organise
nation-wide multistakeholder conversations. The 30-odd Guyanese whom we had
trained as facilitators were immediately available to facilitate 143 green
spaces in a period of three months all over the country at local, regional and
national level.

A couple of months later
Guyana experienced its first violence-free elections in 50 years. The cycle of
election violence had been broken. Two more violence-free elections
followed.A new coalition of seven opposition parties won the latest
elections in May 2015 by only 5000 votes. They campaigned on a platform of “a
government of national unity”and promised to help Guyana “truly
live up to its motto of ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny”.The Ministry for Social
Cohesion – the
first such ministry in the world, as far as we know –has now
been established.I was thrilled to
accept an invitation to attend the first national round table in September 2015
to help develop a strategic framework for implementing Guyana’s social
cohesion five-year plan.

Guyana’s
leaders chose to stay in the green space. As a South African, I’m
jealous.

I keep wondering about
what it would take for South Africa to rediscover the value of green spaces. We
set the example of going green when we negotiated a new South Africa. We
participated and witnessed the fruits of the National Peace Accord structures
at regional and local levels. We have in our hands Vision 2030 and an imperfect
but very important National Development Plan that asks green space-type
questions.

We also know that staying
in a red-space mentality has produced Marikana, Nkandla, student uprisings, injustice,
unemployment, poverty and inequality. We witness destructive confrontations and
violence in and around parliament and on the streets of our cities and towns.
We seem to be stuck in a red space mentality.

What we need is leaders
who understand that if we only have red spaces, we are in trouble. It is time
for ordinary citizens to step into the middle to convene and facilitate
dialogue spaces. All of us have to go green!

Chris Spies, founder
and director of Dynamic Stability Pty Ltd is an independent conflict
transformation practitioner with extensive international and local experience.
He specialises in dialogue design and facilitation. He is also a senior research
fellow at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town.[J1]